Two companies have recently drawn a lot of interest in the quickly changing field of artificial intelligence (AI): OpenAI, a well-known American AI research centre, and DeepSeek, a Chinese AI startup.
Although both have created sophisticated large language models (LLMs), their methods, prices, and ideologies are different.
Establishment and Purpose Liang Wenfeng, a co-founder of the hedge firm High-Flyer, started DeepSeek in 2023. High-Flyer first concentrated on AI and algorithm-based trading before expanding toward more general AI research, which resulted in the development of DeepSeek. To make cutting-edge AI more widely available, the company strongly emphasises open-source development.
Elon Musk, Sam Altman, and other individuals formed OpenAI in 2015 as a non-profit organization to ensure that artificial general intelligence (AGI) serves the interests of all people. To secure funding, OpenAI gradually switched to a capped-profit business model, collaborating with firms such as Microsoft to further its research.
Model Creation and Expenses
Efficiency and cost-effectiveness were key considerations in the development of DeepSeek's flagship model, DeepSeek-R1. Using cutting-edge training techniques and refined algorithms, the company claimed that less than $6 million in computational resources were needed to train DeepSeek-R1, achieving great performance without incurring significant costs.
OpenAI's models, such GPT-4, on the other hand, have been linked to noticeably greater development expenses. Although the numbers are confidential, estimates indicate that the cost of training GPT-4 was in the hundreds of millions of dollars, which is indicative of the large amount of data and computer power needed.
Capabilities and Performance
DeepSeek-R1 has proven to perform well in certain areas, especially coding and mathematical reasoning problems. According to benchmark testing, DeepSeek-R1 performs somewhat better than OpenAI's models in answering mathematical problems; on the American Invitational Mathematics Examination (AIME) 2024 benchmark, it achieved an accuracy of 79.8% as opposed to OpenAI's 79.2%.
Models from OpenAI, like GPT-4, are well known for their adaptability and general-purpose skills. They perform exceptionally well in a variety of tasks, including as creative writing, translation, and natural language comprehension.
For example, OpenAI's models outperformed DeepSeek-R1 in the Massive Multitask Language Understanding (MMLU) benchmark, demonstrating a wider knowledge base and competence in a variety of disciplines.
DeepSeek vs OpenAI Comparison Table
Feature | DeepSeek | OpenAI |
Founded | 2023 by Liang Wenfeng | 2015 by Elon Musk, Sam Altman, et al. |
Mission | Open-source AI for accessibility | Ensure AGI benefits all of humanity |
Key Model | DeepSeek-R1 | GPT-4 |
Development Cost | <$6 million | Hundreds of millions of dollars |
Approach | Fully open-source | Proprietary |
Performance (Math) | 79.8% on AIME benchmark | 79.2% on AIME benchmark |
Performance (General) | Specialized (math, coding) | Versatile, excels in multiple domains |
Speed | Record-breaking inference speeds | High-speed but resource-intensive |
Use Cases | Problem-solving, coding, mathematical tasks | Creative writing, translation, general NLP |
Access | Free and open to everyone | Paid APIs and commercial partnerships |
Market Impact | Disrupted AI norms with cost-effective models | Industry leader with partnerships (Microsoft) |
Ethics/Safety | Promotes transparency, shared responsibility | Focused on controlled, safe AI deployment |
Target Audience | Developers, startups, researchers | Enterprises, large-scale businesses |
Notable Collaboration | Open-source community | Microsoft, Azure |
Innovation | Cost-effective AI at scale | Pioneering large-scale proprietary models |